Recent years have seen an ever increasing interest in energy conservation. Within this field, one problem that the present inventors have recognized is the problem of helping users of individual appliances and other pieces of equipment understand the energy consumption of these appliances and thus more intelligently target their conservation efforts. Although one could couple an energy meter to each appliance to measure its energy usage, the number of appliances in typical homes and businesses multiplied by the cost of these meters has deterred widespread usage.
Accordingly, the present inventors have recognized a need for better ways of measuring energy usage of individual appliances.